Re: NANFA-L-- Keeping Sculpin

Bob Bock (bockhouse at earthlink.net)
Mon, 12 Sep 2005 11:58:53 -0400 (GMT-04:00)

Just as long as you keep them cool and give them food they like, they'll be happy.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Grabarkiewicz <threehorn_wartyback at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sep 12, 2005 11:30 AM
To: nanfa-l at nanfa.org
Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- Keeping Sculpin

Thanks for all the advice Bob and Bruce. The sculpin I snagged was a mottled. They are stationed in my basement so I hope I can keep the water sub 70 degrees. I'm using a 20 gallon long tank with a rather large powerhead (270 gph). It has a very nice riffle feel to it.
Tank mates are timid feeders who are about 1.5 times larger than the sculpin.

I was worried I took a fish that I had no business taking.

Jeff

Bob Bock <bockhouse at earthlink.net> wrote:
Hi Jeff. I've kept Potomac and/or mottled sculpin. They're both found in a creek near here, and to tell you the truth, I never bothered to try to tell the difference between them.

Anyway, those two species like cool water and will probably falter and die if they get too much above 70 degrees. They love blackworms and can be trained to frozen offerings like brine shrimp. They are extremely predatory, however, and will pick off anything they can swallow. They'll try to eat fish that are just a little too big for them, and I've had some choke to death on fantail darters.

They aren't good competitors with the larger minnow and shiner species. If you've got them in a tank with a lot of faster species, you can train them to accept blackworms from a turkey baster (the Scharpf method). The turkey baster also may come in handy for making sure the smaller sculpins get enough to eat when their are larger sculpins around.

I kept mine going for quite awhile on blackworms and rosy red feeder minnows. It may take awhile for the sculpins to pick off the rosy reds. After the sculpins become acclimated to their tank, you can train them to accept rosy reds from a pair of forceps.

Aside from laying on the bottom, sculpins are active and alert fish. A few sculpins will soon set up discrete little territories when kept in the same tank They'll quickly learn to recognize the person who feeds them and draw near when it's feeding time. They'll even follow a fingertip drawn along the side of the aquarium glass.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Grabarkiewicz
Sent: Sep 12, 2005 7:46 AM
To: nanfa-l at nanfa.org
Subject: NANFA-L-- Keeping Sculpin

Hey y'all- looking for a little advice on how to keep sculpin. Obviously, they are somewhat sedentary benthic fish that thrive in higher gradient coldwater streams. In captivity however, what is the best thing to feed them? Are they a "good" aquarium fish?
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